


Squeeze

by kneipho



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Transporter Malfunction, USS NoRomo, away mission
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-09 18:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15273678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kneipho/pseuds/kneipho
Summary: An away mission goes awry.





	1. The Transport

**Author's Note:**

> Once More with feeling:  
> Finishing up old works. I bumped this one a while back. Never got around to posting it in its entirety. No beta -so, I will upload each section after a go-over. :)
> 
> Story takes place after "Mortal Coil," but before, "Thirty Days." Contains mild spoilers for, "The Learning Curve", with special acknowledgment to, "Microcosm."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Janeway's Away Team returns incomplete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sections 1-3, first posted on FF.net back in 2004)

Disclaimer: Star Trek and all of its subsequent incarnations, (including _Voyager_ ) are the property of CBS Corporation and/or Paramount Pictures. No characters belong to me. No profit made. No harm intended. 

Title: Squeeze

Part 1/4: The Transport  
Author: kneipho  
Beta: Flying Solo On This One, Folks  
Rating: T (PG-13, for language and general grossness)  
Fandom: VOY  
Character/Pairing Codes: Voy and Co  


Written for Bridget, Vanessa, MrNiceGuy, and Bek.

\---------------

"Where are they, damn it?!"

The steel in Captain Janeway's voice cut neatly through the silence of the room, like scythe slices through tender stalks of grain. She swooped down off the transporter pad to stand tiny, but menacing, in front of  _Voyager's_  Chief of Security.

Unaffected by the force of her demeanor, Commander Tuvok offered his captain a calm, steady reply. "Sensors indicate transport was successful.”

Janeway's belly contracted painfully; twisting into itself and blistering. She was going to be sick. She drop-kicked the white helmet of her environmental suit across the room, instead. "I don't understand. Then, where are my men?"

"According to sensor interpretations, they are here."

"Here?"

"On the ship."

She shook her head as if to clear it. "Are you saying their molecules are trapped inside the pattern buffers?"

"Negative Captain. Neither are they on the surface of the planet. All data indicates that the other two members your party are here, with us, in Transporter Room Two."

She shuffled a step or two in place, breathing in carefully. Well-manicured nails raked across her blanching forehead, before disappearing into a damp line of auburn hair. She eyed the empty transporter platform. An explosive belch forced its way past her lips.

Tuvok raised one charcoal eyebrow in reaction. She swatted her comm badge, fighting off the demented urge to cackle. Her right palm felt sticky. It tingled slightly, as it impacted with metal. "Commander Chakotay."

No, answer.

"Mr. Kim— Ensign, this is the captain. Report!"

Still nothing.

"Chakotay, please respond!"

Empty silence. She was suddenly afraid. "Engineering."

"I'm here." B'Elanna Torres' voice burst through the badge, offering up a nonsensical, yet, needed flash of reassurance.

"What the in the hell is going on? Where are my people?"

"I wish I could tell you, Captain, but I just don't know yet."

"That's not the answer I want to hear, Lieutenant."

" _Voyager_ experienced a minor power surge during the transport." Worry and frustration were evident in the engineer's tone. "We made the appropriate adjustments to compensate for the flux. There was some additional radioactive interference, but not enough to disrupt the procedure."

"Go on."

"No evidence from Astrometerics of temporal activity, no unexplained anomalous readings. It doesn't make any sense! The sensor and bio-signature scans keep feeding the computer the same conclusion: 'All Away-Team members were safely beamed into and are now, currently in Transporter Room 2.'

"Son of a bitch!"

Commander Tuvok silently regarded his superior. She gave him a wry, non-apologetic grin and crouched forward. Sweat dribbled down the sides of her face, disappearing into her uniform collar, and her skin shone with verdant tinge that reflected anything but suitable human health.

"I know you can see me, Tuvok —and I can see you," she said, rubbing her thumb along the soggy line of her upper lip. "When I look down, I see my boots. Nonetheless, when I look around this room, I do not see the Away Team. Do you see the away team?"

His response was forecast and devoid of emotion. "I do not."

"What are we missing?" Agitated blue eyes searched the inner depths of a collected, darker pair for the answer. "B'Elanna, could we be looking at a possible inter-dimensional spatial fold inside the ship?"

"I don't know Captain. So far, nothing has popped out onto our sensors. Seven is going over the existing diagnostics along with my other data. We intend to perform a thorough manual check of all systems. I'd like to come up there and personally to examine the transporter console and bio-neural related circuitry."

"Do it. We will get you started. Janeway out."

A strong Vulcan hand caught the captain by the arm. "I believe you should be in Sickbay. Your pulse rate has increased signif—"

"I'm fine, old friend. Just worried." Janeway shrugged off the commander's grasp, biting down on her tongue to keep from crying out as her stomach issued a silent scream.

Tuvok watched her stagger past the transporter, toward the waiting panels in the wall opposite the door.

She was grumbling something under her breath about "kicking Chakotay's fat ass" when her legs gave way. Janeway yelped, her eyes rolling toward the back of her head, her body jack-knifing into an unconscious blob, and she plunked down on the deck in a dead faint.


	2. Hot Soup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chakotay and Harry find themselves in an unfamiliar region.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Star Trek and all of its subsequent incarnations, (including _Voyager _) are the property of CBS Corporation and/or Paramount Pictures. No characters belong to me. No profit made. No harm intended.__

Squeeze: Part 2/4, Hot Soup

\---------------

He panicked at first. When he could not find his footing in the darkness, Commander Chakotay went a little wild. He thrashed around aimlessly for a few seconds or so, his hardy appendages slowly turning about like the rusty arms of a rickety old windmill before reason kicked in. He wasn't dead. He was alive —alive and slowly paddling about in some sort of quasi-gelatinous substance in the dark. Obviously, something had gone wrong during the transport. This, clearly, was not _Voyager's _transporter room.__

_Goo_. He was swimming in chunky, liquid goo. Chakotay mumbled a quick prayer of thanks to no one in particular for the invention of environmental gear. _Where are we_?

Out wind from his swirling exertions, he attempted to hail the captain, shouting into the comm-link of his space-suit as his ears adjusted to a continual clamoring gurgle that seemed originate from all around. He hailed her again when she did not reply but received no answer. He repeated a similar exercise, in an effort to contact the ship, his entreaties louder this time. Again, the activity proved to be useless. Blowing air out his nostrils, he switched channels and called out for Harry.

"I'm here, Sir!"

A glimmer of light passed over of his face. Chakotay aimed his illuminating system toward the phosphorescent glow to find Ensign Kim dangling, ghost-like, less than three-hundred centimeters away. Inclining his head toward the floating ensign, he redirected the beam of his wrist-torch in an oval and counter-clockwise; starting above his head and ending down below his feet. It was a slow process; the surrounding bemired atmosphere impeding the operation significantly. _We're housed in some sort of chamber _, he postulated, squinting as he peered about in the murky dim.__

The area was sizable, but not enormous, roughly circular and less than twenty square meters all the way around. He barely made out the impression of borders, and was unable to analyze the texture of the walls. Harry was also endeavoring to scan the area, possibly to discover a way out. Janeway was nowhere in sight. "Maybe she made it back to the ship."

"I'm sorry, Sir?"

Chakotay hadn't realized he had spoken aloud. "Looks like the captain made it back to the ship." The utterance rang with more conviction than he actually felt. 

"I hope you're right." the ensign replied. "Commander, something's wrong with my tricorder."

"Mine, too."

"I can't get any decent readings."

"Keep trying anyway."

"Aye Sir. Sir?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have any idea where we are?"

"No —well, maybe. I can't say with certainty, but I think we may have transported into that mineral quagmire we just finished investigating on the surface." Harry made a face. Chakotay continued, "From the looks of things, we may very well be inside one of the those enclosed pockets of sludge we detected below the top layers of of the marsh."

"Great. That would explain... the decor."

"Just be grateful, we can't smell anything through our suits."

If you're right about our location... all we have to do... is rupture the top of the pocket's membrane... and then make our way... to the surface."

Chakotay's eyes lifted from his tricorder. Harry was panting, his skin green. "Check your oxygen levels, Mr. Kim, " he ordered. "Now. "

"Oxygen levels are... within... normal levels..."

"Mr. Kim?"

"Ohhh boy."

"Ensign, are you all right?"

"Commander— "

"Speak up. Are you going to be ill?"

"I feel... dizzy."

"You look like you want to retch, son. I told you not to eat before we went out on this mission. Mom didn't pack you of change of clothes."

"And I thought we left...Tom... Paris... s-safely behind."

"Watch it, now. You're crossing the line."

"S-sir!" The word formed between chattering teeth.

"What is it?"

"I, I'm hot. I feel...r-eally hot and... my skin...is c--crawling."

"This climate must be affecting your suit's environmental settings. Can you adjust the controls?"

"I th-th-think s-so." Kim was visibly shivering, his whole body quaking violently with active tremors.

Chakotay paddled over and put his arm firmly around the ailing officer.

"You'll be all right, Ensign. We'll figure a way out of this."

There was a sharp crack, an unexpected, thundery sound —unnervingly reminiscent of a rock smashing into paned glass. Chakotay flinched, staring wordlessly as the transparent panel of Kim's headgear mysteriously crepitated, fissuring above the cheekbone all the way to the edge in a weird spider-web shaped pattern. Kim's cheeks had reddened into an extreme flush, marbling over with streaks of white —giving them the look of raw, chuck steak. He stiffened under the commander's arm and fainted. Chakotay tightened his grip, the muscles in his back and chest contracting into hard coils and he forced his focus on the fissures. They were extensive, but blessedly shallow. The helmet had not compromised, but it only a matter of minutes before the face-plate fully ruptured and collapsed.

It wasn't long after; he realized they were sinking, being drawn down in an intermittent swirl of current he had been too distracted to notice. He released the ensign, briefly; reclaiming, an arm as Kim began to sink —and pulled. Chakotay kicked with all his might, propelling upward; his movements hampered in the alien gumbo, battling to drag the unconscious man up behind him.

There was a second loud “crack.” Chakotay's vision clouded. He smelled and acid and… puke. His muscles began tremble. His face itched, his head was growing light, and his veins tickled in an abnormal sort of way. Suddenly, he couldn't move. Kim's body began to convulse. The commander couldn't hold him.

This was bad. They needed to get out of there.


End file.
